


don't fear the reaper

by neonosito



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: All of the main characters are dead by the first chapter I cannot emphasise this enough, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Mild gore and descriptions of death from the get go, They're the reaper squad, Tim Sasha Jon and Gerry work for death aka Oliver, the homoromanticism of being bound to a reaper who wants your soul
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 16:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29903784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neonosito/pseuds/neonosito
Summary: Martin Blackwood wakes up after a fall to find himself staring at his own corpse, accompanied by a man who claims to be a servant of Death.He wants to move on - of course he does. But his soul seems to have other plans, leaving him stuck with a reaper (also known as Jonathan Sims) and his colleagues until they figure out what he needs to do to get some peace.The beginning of his afterlife isn't exactly off to a great start.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 31
Kudos: 60





	don't fear the reaper

**Author's Note:**

> hi everyone, i'm back with a more ambitious story!! yay!! i'm really excited for this one. i'd appreciate any comments just to be sure this is worth posting for you all to enjoy!!
> 
> warnings for a description of a dead body and past suicidal ideation. this whole fic is centered around the dead and dying, so look after yourselves and don't read further if this will upset you.
> 
> the extremely predictable, cliched title is taken from blue oyster cult!!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s funny how such small things can change your life so drastically.
> 
> Or, in Martin’s case, destroy it completely. 

It would be a bit reductive to call Martin’s life boring. 

Just because he has a steady routine and a small ( _small_ ) social circle, it doesn’t mean it isn’t important or good. He works at the library Monday through Friday and occasionally even goes out for drinks with the rest of the staff on Wednesdays after their shifts are up. However, on the Thursdays when he visits his mother he doesn’t drink the day prior. She always comments on the smell of alcohol that is apparently there, even though he's wearing clean clothes and has brushed his teeth vigorously. Aside from that, they've been getting on quite alright recently. He's also taken up knitting. 

Yeah, maybe it would be nice to have close friends he could text when he's feeling down. Even a partner would be pleasant. The dating apps scare the life out of him, though - he's too nervous to make the first move, but when one guy asked to meet up he threw his phone across the room and didn't pick it up until the next morning. It’s not like he’s _always_ sad. Martin doesn’t need these things to live well. He finds pleasure in the little things. He likes that about himself. Like today! He bought himself a new kind of wool to knit a tea cosy, maybe a scarf for his mum as well. It’s getting a bit cold, and she's still well enough to go on assisted walks around the grounds of the care home. 

On the way home he’s humming to himself after a rather good shift at the library. There was a school visit at 2pm, and one of the kids tugged on his jumper and asked for a cup of juice. It was adorable, and you can’t beat those big smiles you get from children when you do the smallest of things. The flat he lives in is rather cosy, probably on the snug side, but decent rent considering he lives in Central London. It’s nice and warm when he gets in though, and he places the new wool in his knitting basket then puts a meal in the microwave for dinner. He also brews some raspberry tea that Leah recommended to him the other day. It’s good! Dinner is fine. Everything is fine. The rest of the night is smooth, easy, inconsequential. Better than it being terrible. After an evening of trashy TV and half-hearted cleaning he drowsily stumbles to the bathroom for his quick nighttime routine. He washes his face, making sure to put the drying towel back on the rack 

(he doesn’t notice it slip off)

then brushes his teeth. 

Tomorrow he’s going to go shopping for new pyjamas, he decides. It’s better for him to sleep in a fresh set rather than an old t-shirt and boxers. After running his toothbrush under the tap, he’s ready for bed.

It’s funny how such small things can change your life so drastically.

Or, in Martin’s case, destroy it completely. 

His foot catches on the towel that had fallen haphazardly to the floor, causing him to slip and fall in one fluid motion. He can barely yell out, can’t catch himself. It’s almost scary how easily his neck makes contact with the ceramic bathtub, how easily his body slumps to the floor. 

Martin wakes and feels nothing. He reaches to poke at his skin, search for tender flesh, and comes up with little to be concerned about. He exhales slowly, thoroughly relieved at the close call. It's only when he goes to turn out the light that he notices the body on the tile, right next to where he was sprawled out a second before. 

An old grey t-shirt, dark blue boxers. Martin freezes, his hand lingering on the switch and trembling slightly. On shaky legs, he walks to the body, and it looks like him, but it _can’t_ be. They’re splayed out on the floor at an awkward angle, too awkward for anyone to be so still. The neck is completely twisted to the side, unnaturally so. There’s vertebrae poking out that’s making their pale skin bulge. He gags. This has to be some kind of hallucination, or maybe he’s already in bed, asleep. A cautious hand extends out to prod the body’s skin. It’s still warm, but when his hand grazes over the chest he notices it isn’t moving. He sobs and clutches at his own chest, the body he’s inhabiting, and he can’t feel his heartbeat. He can’t feel his fucking _heartbeat._ Slowly, instinct begins to kick in, and he starts to perform CPR on the body that looks like his, steadily pressing down, and is that a rib cracking? Yes, that’s fine, better a broken bone than dead, he can deal with that later. 

A tear rolls down his cheek. Martin doesn’t want to die. He can't be dead. Sure, he's had his down days, _very_ down days, but he never meant it when he said he wanted to stop existing. They were just meaningless threats, nothing real, he’d never thought to carry them out. The body isn’t responding, and he _knew_ he should've taken that first aid refresher course. He’s about to start mouth to mouth (he has no breath, what the hell is he supposed to do, does he have lungs?), then he thinks of praying. He recalls that rosary stuffed at the back of his drawer, maybe-

There’s a polite cough behind him. Martin whirls around, shocked, and hides the body as best he can for reasons he can’t explain. 

He sees that there’s just- this _man_ standing there. Right outside the bathroom, looking at him skeptically, as if _Martin_ is the one intruding. 

“Who the fuck are you?!” He asks, voice reaching hysterical heights, “Get out of my flat!”

The man barely regards him, instead pulling a clipboard out of thin air and scanning it impassively. “Martin Blackwood, is it?”

“What? Get the f-”

A sigh, the rustling of papers. “Thirty years old, no siblings, no spouse?”

Bewildered, he actually finds himself responding, mouth open in shock. “Yes, that’s me- get out before I call the police!”

“Oh, feel free.” The man doesn’t move. 

Martin grits his teeth and storms towards his phone, their shoulders brushing as he goes (wait, no they don’t, he phases right through the guy, what is _happening_ ). He manages to grasp the thing with his shaking hands, fumbling slightly as he dials. 

" _Y_ _ou should go alone on this one, Jon, seems easy_ , they said,” the strange man mutters. “They just wanted to stay home and play bloody Mario Kart.”

Martin shakes off the words and focuses on the steady ringing, the relief of the _click_ to signal someone picking up _._

“999, what’s your emergency?”

“Oh, thank _god._ Police, please, there’s an intruder in my home.” He keeps the phone in a vice-like grip, and the man behind him is _still_ reading through those papers.

The operator doesn’t respond for a beat. “Hello, anyone there?”

He feels his insides turn to ice. If he even has insides anymore. “Yes, I’m here. Hello?”

“If you’re there, press a button on the keypad for me, any button.” 

Martin grunts in frustration and pulls the phone away from his ear, furiously pressing on the screen. His finger phases through it and he shouts in surprise, just enough for him to drop the thing to the floor. Predictably, it smashes. 

The man behind him lets out a huff of dry amusement. He’s looking straight at Martin, eyebrow raised, one foot tapping against the wooden floor expectantly. He’s right next to the body, _Martin’s_ body, and then it all becomes too much again. Pieces of his destroyed phone stab into his knees as he sinks to the floor sobbing. 

“Oh- oh, dear, that’s-” The man walks over gingerly, shoes grinding down the shards of the screen with every step. “It’s alright.” There’s an attempt to pat Martin’s back that is clearly unsuccessful.

“What is _happening_ to me,” Martin almost wails, and the man grimaces. 

“My name is Jonathan,” he says, voice softer than before, “or Jon, and I’m here to tell you that you’ve- passed, and to take your soul to the afterlife.”

Martin stops and looks up, puzzled for a second. Then laughs. A proper laugh that _should_ knock all the breath out of him. _“Fuck off!_ For a start, it looks like you work at my place,” he gestures to the sweater vest and neatly pressed trousers, “you can't be the _grim reaper_.”

Jonathan- Jon’s mouth sets in a firm line. “I can assure you, Mr Blackwood, that this is all too real.”

He stares at Jon defiantly, getting up and brushing the debris off of his knees. “Alright then. Prove it.”

Jon pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. “You’re one of those. Is the sight of your dead body not enough?”

Martin shakes his head, and Jon pulls out the clipboard again reluctantly. “Martin K Blackwood, fake middle name-” Martin sputters at that, “son of Karolina Blackwood, née Golinska, and Jason Blackwood. Attended St. Paul’s primary school and worked at your local library. You were in the bathroom when you slipped and fell hard enough for you to snap your neck against the tub. You perished almost instantly. Time of death, 10:03pm-”

“Enough!” Martin puts his hands over his ears. “Enough.”

Jon seems to have the sense to nod and keep his mouth shut. He keeps his eyes on Martin while he walks back over to the body - _his_ body. His eyes are wide open, comically so, and it turns his stomach. There’s still that awful bulge in his neck, his mouth is parted slightly, a phantom sign of the small noise he managed to make before he slipped. His limbs are splayed out in the tiny bathroom with that stained bath mat he always forgot to wash. He didn't even make a _mess._ Didn't even knock a shampoo bottle over. He can be lifted out of here like nothing happened. Martin closes his own eyelids and sighs, then walks over to Jon, defeated. 

“Right. What happens now.” 

The stiff lines of Jon’s shoulders seem to loosen, and he looks exceptionally determined, businesslike. Martin can kind of see why he’d be good as the grim reaper now. You can’t really afford to be sentimental in this line of work. Is it work? Does he get paid?

“I’m going to reach inside of you for your soul, and I will take it to the afterlife. You’ll be removed from this mortal plane permanently.” All very matter of fact. Martin doesn’t even think to question it, it’s like he’s telling him the sky is blue. 

Thoughts of pearly white gates and winged beings spring to mind. “Where will I go?”

Jon scrunches his nose in thought. “I can't answer that question. I deal in death, not what comes after.”

“Has anyone told you your bedside manner is terrible?” Martin says, because apparently he’s brave enough to call the grim reaper out on his shit, and Jon just laughs. He has quite a nice laugh. 

“Are you ready?”

Martin shrugs. “Yeah, sure. Why not? If this is all a dream I'll have a good giggle in the morning. Or book an appointment to see a therapist.”

Jon nods and flexes his fingers. He then carefully reaches out to Martin’s chest. His tongue is running over his lip in concentration, and if he weren't stealing his soul Martin would think he was quite attractive.

He closes his eyes, anticipating a ray of golden light to radiate from him, that white glow to appear in the distance. A heavenly, disembodied voice beckoning him forth, something to that effect. There's none of that, though. Only Jon's steady breathing and the sensation of him breaching some invisible barrier. It should probably be painful, but Martin doesn't sense anything untoward at all. Like it's natural, easy. Then, without warning, agony shoots through him. It feels like an icicle slamming into his heart, and it causes he and Jon to yelp out in pain in tandem. Jon frowns, looking at his hands. 

“I don’t- what-” He says, bewildered. 

“Oh, christ, don’t tell me I don’t have a soul?” Martin worriedly thinks back on all those Sunday services with his mum.

“No you do, I can see it,” Jon waves a hand dismissively, eyes still on his chest. “It just won’t let me…” He reaches out again, and they both cry out. 

He takes a step back and eyes Martin with suspicion, just like when he first magically appeared. Again, Martin is apparently the wrongdoer in this situation. “This has never happened to me before.” He sounds _offended._

Martin huffs and throws his hands in the air. “Great! Just my luck. Does that mean I can come back to life now?” That would be very nice. He pointedly doesn't look at his body back in the bathroom.

Jon clicks his tongue and shakes his head. “No. We’re going to need reinforcements, I'm afraid.” Then, of all things, he pulls out a very modern looking phone. Someone answers to a lot of yelling and commotion. 

“Yes, hello, there's an emergency. I’m sorry Gerry purple shelled you- _blue shelled_ you, but we have a _work related_ problem. Great. Thank you.” He mutters Martin’s address and hangs up.

Martin doesn’t stop staring at his limp form strewn across the floor. It’s hard not to. Jon’s gaze flickers to him, then the room, and he shuts the bathroom door quickly. 

“Wh-” Martin splutters, “don’t close the door on _my_ body!”

“I’m sorry, I thought it’d make you feel better!”

Martin squints down at him. Jon is actually quite small, so it’s not hard. “Why do I get the feeling you’re new at this?”

Jon scowls. 

Three people then decide to materialise in his living room out of nowhere, a flurry of noise and colour. They seem to be bickering amongst themselves. 

“The blue shell is a con, I swear to fuck-” One of them seethes, pointing a finger in an accusing gesture.

“You’re just mad you got a coin for your power up-” Another fires back haughtily. 

“I’m selling our switch, don't _try_ me, Gerry.”

They’re strangely entrancing, the fluid way they all seem to argue like they’ve been doing it for decades. A smile plays on the lips of a tall woman with large glasses, who steps out of the heated discussion and goes over to Jon. The other two follow when she pokes them in the ribs insistently. The man in a cropped jumper (made up of vibrant pinks and blues) along with some ripped jeans towers over Jon, passing on his complaints about Mario Kart in a booming voice. Martin gets the feeling that he just talks like that, rather than it being him in argument mode. The remaining person in the group - a goth guy? - is the only one to really acknowledge him. He raises a hand in greeting. 

“Rough day, eh?” His voice is surprisingly gentle and amiable. 

“Oh, y’know,” Martin says weakly. “I’ve had better.”

The guy nods solemnly as if he genuinely does get it, which Martin suspects he does. 

“Tried to...soul...can’t reach...hurt…” Is all he manages to catch from the small huddle near his sofa. The woman is studying Jon's face with furious interest, leaning forward intently. 

There’s a loud _smack!_ from the man in the loud clothing clapping his hands together. He appears to have heard enough. “Okay! Jon over here is clearly still in need of training wheels-”

“I _resent_ that-”

“So I’m gonna take your soul. That alright?”

“Whatever.” He’s too busy trying to recall if he had cheese in his dinner tonight. That causes nightmares, doesn’t it? 

The man breathes on his palms to warm them, which Martin finds strangely endearing, and mimics the position Jon did earlier. A tentative touch, then:

“Mother _fucker!_ ” He reels back, sucking the tip of his forefinger and staring at it as if he’s been betrayed. On Martin's end, it doesn't hurt anywhere near as much as it did with Jon. 

“I _told_ you,” Jon snipes, looking a little smug. 

“Gerry, you go,” says the other man, still cradling his finger. The goth - Gerry, he supposes - raises an eyebrow at Martin. He makes a weary noise of assent, then notes absently he really should be more concerned about this whole thing. It's the most exciting thing that's happened to him in his 30 years of existence. 

The same thing happens. 

“My turn, my turn,” the woman says excitedly, eyes wide behind her already huge glasses. 

Again, the same happens, but rather than cry out in pain she looks _delighted._ “Fascinating. He doesn’t want to leave. Well, his soul refuses to.”

Jon peers at him curiously, frowning that familiar frown. Like he’s a puzzle he can’t quite figure out. “I’ve never dealt with this before, Sasha.”

Sasha rocks back on her heels, a thoughtful look on her face that is kinder than Jon’s own. “Oh, it’s common, I guess, but I’ve never had a soul _hurt_ me before. Usually they’re just...resistant. Tell me, Martin, are you particularly keen on living?” 

The whole room’s heads swivel to face him. He swallows hard. Would a room full of soul-takers (collectors? stealers?) be mad if he said he wanted to stay alive? “Uh. I'd like to live. Very much so. But there's also a physical version of me in that room with a broken neck, so. I know when to admit defeat.”

She nods. “So you’re willing to leave.”

“I guess?”

Sasha turns to the group - and what a group they make, mismatched but somehow so in tune - and smiles. “Tim, you're the oldest, have you ever had anything like this?”

Tim shakes his head. “Nah. Resistant souls, like you said, even those bastards who’ve tried to cheat death were stubborn, but no pain.”

“See, don’t feel bad, Jon! This is going beyond Martin’s immediate consciousness. It's something that he doesn't know he wants or needs.”

“I _don’t_ feel bad,” Jon says defensively, but the way he’s hunched over suggests otherwise. 

Gerry hums and cocks his head to the side. “Okay, so what do we do with him?”

“Well. He's bound by a spiritual contract to Jon until he retrieves his soul.”

“ _What?”_ Jon squeaks. 

Sasha sighs exasperatedly. “It’s in the paperwork. You need to read your contracts closer. Really, there was no point in the rest of us having a go.”

“What does that mean?” Martin asks, and they all seem surprised at him asking questions rather than answering them. Well, it’s _his_ soul, he should get to know exactly what's happening.

“You can't move on until Jon, specifically, takes your soul. Whatever is stopping that, we need to figure it out. Otherwise you’ll be stuck like this indefinitely.”

Tim whistles slowly, his eyes widening, and Jon rubs a hand over his face like this is the worst news he could have possibly expected. To be fair, it probably is. Martin wouldn't like to be stuck with himself if he were Jon. Also, considering the way Jon has handled this whole thing, Martin isn't too keen to be - _bound_ to him either. Whatever that means. 

“Okay. So what do I- where do I go from here?” There’s a dead body in his bathroom and he won’t be able to work to pay rent considering he’s a spectre. He can only imagine he won’t be welcome in his own flat anymore. 

The group (excluding Jon) exchange a _look,_ and Tim grins.

“All those in favour of a new housemate, say aye!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really killed my man martin with a towel, huh??? f

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: mag154


End file.
